Moe Lane

It’s apparently a slow day at CNN. It’s not supposed to be a slow day for me, but I am finding it difficult to buckle down and do what I should be doing. So… this.

Anyway, Hot Air Headlines is already starting in on the mockery, but this could actually be all right – as long as the author goes with the implied suggestion in my title and actually does make Frank Castle the best man. After all, he’s already part of that universe’s continuity.

No. Really.

Cruelly, the WSJ provides the real names of its interviewees whenever possible.

We must be in a recession: conspicuous consumption in hip-hop / rap / whatever they’re calling it this week is down. Way down. Via Mickey K:

Culture of Bling Clangs to Earth as the Recession Melts Rappers’ Ice

After years of starring in rap-music lyrics and videos, “bling” is losing its ring.

The recession is cramping the style of hip-hop artists and wannabes — many of whom are finding it difficult to afford the diamond-encrusted pendants and heavy gold chains they have long used to project an aura of outsized wealth.

In an attempt to keep up appearances, celebrity jewelers say rappers are asking them to make medallions with less-precious stones and metals. Some even whisper that the artists have begun requesting cubic zirconia, the synthetic diamond stand-in and QVC staple.

Can you hold in your disappointment? Try to hold in your disappointment.
(more…)

“In a recession, it just doesn’t make any sense for two people who say that they love each other to pay separate rents.”

The Onion, of course.

Nation’s Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan: ‘Let’s Move In Together’

Now, I’m not saying that everybody laughing at this in a relaxed fashion are married, mind you. I’m merely saying that very few if any married people are nervously laughing at this; we may be also laughing in a somewhat cruel fashion, but that’s to be expected. It’s sort of like how most ex-smokers act, only with more malice aforethought and smugness.

Moe Lane

I was first tipped off to this by the NRCC’s blog: Jack Murtha is going to have a primary opponent. For those who were wondering: Murtha did not have a primary opponent in 2008. Or 2006.  Or 2004*.  You have to go back to 2002 to see the last time that anybody tried to challenge him, in fact.

From the Post-Gazette’s blog:

Today, former naval officer Ryan Bucchianeri announced he would run against Murtha for the Democratic nomination for the 12th District congressional seat next year. The Monongahela native graduated from Ringgold High School in 1993 and then the U.S. Naval Academy, before receiving a master’s in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Bucchianeri won’t win the primary, of course – the netroots will be the only ones who might give him the money that he needs to make a successful challenge, and they’ll never support an unapologetic war veteran over a man who calls Marines murderers, particularly when the latter is also a crony of the Speaker of the House.  But that’s all right.  The fact that he’s getting one in the first place tells us that he’s more vulnerable than he’s been.  So we go after him next year.  If that doesn’t work, 2012.  If that doesn’t work, 2014.

Eventually we’ll get him.

Moe Lane

*He didn’t have an opponent in the general election, either.

Crossposted to RedState.

I was originally going to go with something from Coleridge, but an albatross necklace is not exactly the image that either I or the GOP was trying to invoke, here.

The NRCC will be launching a barrage of television, radio, phone, and physical advertisements today at specific Democratic-controlled House Districts. The theme of the message: Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attacks on the CIA, the implications of those attacks, and the curious disinterest in selected House Democrats in facing up to those implications. The television ad for MD-01′s Frank Kratovil sums it up:

If the CIA deceived the Speaker of the House, then the CIA is committing a crime. The GOP has been saying for a couple of weeks now that Speaker Pelosi needs to provide either evidence or an apology; and when she provided neither, the GOP called for a bipartisan investigation of the CIA. Speaker Pelosi and her cronies in the House had it squashed.  So the NRCC is going to ask selected voters how they feel about the idea that their legislators may be supporting a slanderer and liar.

Specific breakdown of names/type of advertisements below the fold: I’ll be updating with the scripts once I get them.

Moe Lane (more…)

From the ABC report:
Interviewer: “And what does it say to you, when you see this design now?”
T-Shirt maker: [pauses, looks at t-shirt machine, looks back] “Money.”

According to ABC News (Via Hot Air Headlines), I* apparently helped participate in an Internet meme by bringing up the Three Wolf Moon shirt earlier. Which is not all that important, except for this bit:

The Three Wolf Moon shirt isn’t new –- it’s been on sale for a couple of years. But since the viral thread took off this month, sales went through the roof. It’s currently selling more than a hundred an hour, and it’s the #1 seller in Amazon’s apparel line.

Really. 100/hour?

Feel free to let me have a piece of that action, then. I’m not proud.

Moe Lane

PS: Tell all your friends.

*No, of course ABC News didn’t mention me or the site.

It’s not ‘official’, but unless Sestak is sufficiently a practical joker as to send his supporters handwritten phony fund-raising notes, it’s happening. Guess that means that Arlen Specter is going to have to face a tough primary battle after all.

Meanwhile…

Moderate Pa. Republicans warming to Toomey

Moderate Republican leaders have stopped publicly pushing to recruit a less-conservative alternative to front-runner Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race, a sign that he has begun to calm concerns about his electability.

Toomey has redoubled efforts to court skeptics in the party establishment in the two weeks since former Gov. Tom Ridge declined to enter the race for the GOP nomination despite the pleadings of prominent moderates.

Karma. It’s what’s for dinner.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

As part of the speech to the Air Force Academy:

Then, not content to leave without a jaunty ad lib, Biden noted that heavy winds were gusting through the ceremonies. One of his two teleprompters had toppled over. Alluding to the jokes of Obama’s reliance on the speech-facilitators, Biden added, “What I am going to tell the president when I tell him his teleprompter is broken. What will he do then.”

Stammer, hem, and haw, of course. The President isn’t actually all that great an orator – well, more accurately, while he can give a pretty speech he’s not all that great at giving memorable ones. It’s that cool detachment thing that he’s so lauded for; POTUS is rarely particularly engaged in what he’s saying, which means that his listeners have to supply the emotional resonance themselves. That’s one major reason why people rarely remember actual lines from his speeches.

I could be very harsh at this point, but I’ll be nice and just say that this level of not-caring also means that it’s harder to ad-lib when things go wrong.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Stupid television program playing just enough of this to get this stuck in my head.

One Thing, Finger Eleven

I wasn’t even watching TV. I was taking TV away from the kid.

[UPDATE] You know, make that just a little more bleak and/or surreal and that video’s almost got a Delta Green-style Hastur Mythos feel to it.

Harry, you ignorant slut.

I am perilously close to being gobsmacked by this transcript of the Burris/Blagojevich conversation (via Hot Air). I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that there’s enough there to indicate that Roland Burris flat-out lied about not trading favors and money for the Senate seat.  I am not, however, so stunned as to be unable to remind people about this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this…

Hold on: let’s see that video again.

Ha!

…this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and, finally, this.  In short – and may you have as an enjoyable time reviewing those posts as I did – Rod Blagojevich’s pick of Roland Burris for the Illinois Senate was a transparent trap – and Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic Senate caucus sprung it anyway.  In fact, not being content with springing the trap, Reid and his caucus insisted on making every possible mistake that they could, too.  All because they were afraid.  People will be writing about this act of political revenge fifty years from now, and mocking the Senator from Nevada on every page, too.

Deservedly.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s like we have our own home-grown crop of Puritans these days. Only without the work ethic. And the radical egalitarianism. And the fierce hatred of slavery and anti-Semitism. And, heck, the desire to eat a freaking piece of meat every so often:

GIVE up lamb roasts and save the planet. Government advisers are developing menus to combat climate change by cutting out “high carbon” food such as meat from sheep, whose burping poses a serious threat to the environment.

Out will go kebabs, greenhouse tomatoes and alcohol. Instead, diners will be encouraged to consume more potatoes and seasonal vegetables, as well as pork and chicken, which generate fewer carbon emissions.

I have my own suggestion for these people: you want to cut down on carbon emissions? Stop talking. Less talking, thus less need to breathe, thus less carbon dioxide being emitted. You could also try not going to extravagantly wasteful climate change conferences on jet planes, too. Just a thought.

On the bright side, I now know where I’m ordering lunch from.

Moe Lane

PS: H/T: Instapundit, who also came up with a very pithy saying about this: “I’ll believe that it’s a problem when the people saying that it’s a problem start acting like it’s a problem.”

Crossposted to RedState.

Although if you already read that webcomic, you probably know that already; and if you don’t read that webcomic, you probably don’t care.

Moving on, the Tori Spelling Cthulhu finally made it to DVD. I still have yet to see it; I get the general impression that the word ‘umm’ is used a lot, for a variety of reasons.